A Singularity in All Four Quadrants The Singularity: Rupture or Rapture? There is an old analogy about an ancient emperor of China and the inventor of chess that is often used to help understand the speed of technological growth. According to the story, once the emperor became aware of the game of chess, he sent a message throughout the kingdom seeking to reward its inventor, offering anything within his power to give for such an exceptional game. Upon meeting him, the inventor, who was a poor peasant farmer, thanked the emperor for his generosity, and proceeded to place a single grain of rice in the first square of a chessboard. He then placed two grains in the second square, four in the third, eight in the fourth, etc., doubling the number of grains for each of the chessboard's 64 squares. At first the emperor was fairly amused by the farmer's request—after all, these were mere grains of rice, how much could he possibly lose? According to Moore's Law, computational power is doubling every 18 months. Conclusion
The best visuals to explain the Singularity to senior executives Tomorrow morning I’m doing a presentation to the top executive team of a very large organization on the next 20 years. Most of what I will cover will be general societal, business and technological drivers as well as specific strategic issues driving their business. However as part of stretching their thinking I’ll also speak a about the Singularity. As such I’ve been trying to find one good image to introduce my explanation, however I haven’t been able to find one which is quite right for the purpose. Ray Kurzweil’s Six Epochs diagram below is great and the one I’ll probably end up using, however it is a bit too over-the-top for most senior executives. Source: Ray Kurzweil, Applied Abstractions The chart below from Hans Moravec showing how exponential growth of computing power will allow machines to match human intellectual capabilities is excellent, but it is seriously out of date. Source: Hans Moravec, When will computer hardware match the human brain? Source: Ray Kurzweil, Tropophilia
The lead up to the Singularity Technological Singularity The technological singularity is the hypothesis that accelerating progress in technologies will cause a runaway effect wherein artificial intelligence will exceed human intellectual capacity and control, thus radically changing civilization in an event called the singularity.[1] Because the capabilities of such an intelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is an occurrence beyond which events may become unpredictable, unfavorable, or even unfathomable.[2] The first use of the term "singularity" in this context was by mathematician John von Neumann. Proponents of the singularity typically postulate an "intelligence explosion",[5][6] where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, that might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human. Basic concepts Superintelligence Non-AI singularity Intelligence explosion Exponential growth Plausibility
Coastline paradox An example of the coastline paradox. If the coastline of Great Britain is measured using units 100 km (62 mi) long, then the length of the coastline is approximately 2,800 km (1,700 mi). With 50 km (31 mi) units, the total length is approximately 3,400 km (2,100 mi), approximately 600 km (370 mi) longer. The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. More concretely, the length of the coastline depends on the method used to measure it. Mathematical aspects[edit] The basic concept of length originates from Euclidean distance. Using a few straight lines to approximate the length of a curve will produce a low estimate. However, not all curves can be measured in this way. This Sierpiński curve, which repeats the same pattern on a smaller and smaller scale, continues to increase in length. Practical[edit] See also[edit] Notes[edit] Bibliography[edit] Post, David G., and Michael Eisen. External links[edit]
The Singularity is closer than it appears! Published on Mar 7, 2014 - Socrates of Singularity 1 on 1 sits down with William Hertling to talk about the technological singularity and AI. William Hertling is a rather recent science fiction discovery of mine and the author of award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. William has written several plausible scenarios for the technological singularity that were so engaging and compelling that, as soon as I finished his first book, I could not help it but go ahead and read the next one too. And so I was very happy to get an opportunity and interview Hertling on my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. Podcast: Play in new window | Download This is the second out of a series of 3 sci fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. (You can listen to/download the audio file above or watch the video interview in full. Who is William Hertling? , A.I. . Listen/View
The Hivemind Singularity - Alan Jacobs In a near-future science fiction novel, human intelligence evolves into a hivemind that makes people the violent cells of a collective being. Slime mold network formation (Science). New Model Army, a 2010 novel by the English writer Adam Roberts, concerns itself with many things: the intimacy shared by soldiers at war, the motivating powers of memory and love, the rival merits of hierarchical and anarchic social structures, the legitimacy of the polity known as Great Britain, the question of European identity. Also giants. The title New Model Army derives from the English Civil War in the mid-seventeenth century, when Oliver Cromwell led armies raised by Parliament against supporters of King Charles. With this background in mind, Adam Roberts asks us to imagine a near future when electronic communications technologies enable groups of people to communicate with one another instantaneously, and on secure private networks invulnerable, or nearly so, to outside snooping.
The future of technology will "pale" the previous 20 years Internet Traffic is now 51% Non-Human So you thought the Internet was made by and for people? Think again. A study by Incapsula, a provider of cloud-based security for web sites (mind you where this data comes from), concludes that 51% of all Internet traffic is generated by non-human sources such as hacking software, scrapers and automated spam mechanisms. The study is based on data collected from 1,000 websites that utilize Incapsula’s services, and it determined that just 49% of Web traffic is human browsing. 20% is benign non-human search engine traffic, but 31% of all Internet traffic is tied to malicious activities. 19% is from ” ‘spies’ collecting competitive intelligence,” 5% is from automated hacking tools seeking out vulnerabilities, 5% is from scrapers and 2% is from content spammers. Presumably these numbers will only rise. Thanks Bruce.
Accelerating change In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological (and sometimes social and cultural) progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future. While many have suggested accelerating change, the popularity of this theory in modern times is closely associated with various advocates of the technological singularity, such as Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil. Early theories[edit] In 1938, Buckminster Fuller introduced the word ephemeralization to describe the trends of "doing more with less" in chemistry, health and other areas of industrial development.[1] In 1946, Fuller published a chart of the discoveries of the chemical elements over time to highlight the development of accelerating acceleration in human knowledge acquisition.[2] In 1958, Stanislaw Ulam wrote in reference to a conversation with John von Neumann: Mass use of inventions: Years until use by a quarter of US population
ECCO Home | ecco.vub.ac.be The Coming Technological Singularity ==================================================================== The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era Vernor Vinge Department of Mathematical Sciences San Diego State University (c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge (Verbatim copying/translation and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.) This article was for the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993. It is also retrievable from the NASA technical reports server as part of NASA CP-10129. A slightly changed version appeared in the Winter 1993 issue of _Whole Earth Review_. Abstract Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
The Singularity Is Near The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is a 2005 non-fiction book about artificial intelligence and the future of humanity by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. This is his first book to embrace the Singularity as a term, but the ideas contained within are derived from his previous books, the The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) and The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990). Kurzweil describes his law of accelerating returns which predicts an exponential increase in technologies like computers, genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. He says this will lead to a technological singularity in the year 2045, a point where progress is so rapid it outstrips humans' ability to comprehend it. Kurzweil has been criticized for extrapolating current trends without bounds, when in fact exponential growth often tapers off as resources are exhausted. Content[edit] Exponential growth[edit] Computational capacity[edit] Moore's Law The brain[edit] The Singularity[edit]